5,082 words
The Friends of Eddie Coyle
Peter Yates, 1973, 101 minutes
Robert Mitchum, Peter Boyle, Richard Jordan, Alex Rocco, Stephen Keats, Peter MacLean
Screenplay by Paul Monash; based on the novel by George V. Higgins
Music: Dave Grusin (more…)
1,188 words
Martin Scorsese is best known for his gangster films: Goodfellas (1990), Casino (1995), Gangs of New York (2002), The Departed (2006), The Irishman (2019), and Killers of the Flower Moon (2023). Aside from Gangs of New York, these films unsparingly demythologize organized crime.
Thus Scorsese’s first foray into the mafia genre, 1973’s Mean Streets, is something of a surprise, for its depiction of New York’s Italian mafia may be on a much smaller canvas than Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather (1972), but in some ways it is even more romanticized. (more…)
2,074 words
Where I come from, although it was good, hard-working people trying to raise a family respectably, there was a lot of organized crime, and I saw a lot of violence where I grew up.
-Martin Scorsese
With the recent death of film director David Lynch, there has been much commentary on his place in the pantheon of American film directors. Lynch was a one-off, with a directorial CV including movies which bordered on horror without ever actually being in that genre. But, wherever Lynch comes in any league table of great American directors, there is one name which would be close to the top, if not in first place, in any avid film buff’s list: Martin Scorsese. (more…)
Pieter Claesz, Still Life with a Skull and a Writing Quill (1628)
Pieter Claesz, Still Life with a Skull and a Writing Quill (1628)
1,994 words
I was carrying out a literary exercise of quite a different kind: this was the making up of a continuous ‘story’ about myself . . . — George Orwell, “Why I Write”
Litera scripta manet.
(That which is written, remains.)
— John Dewey (more…)
882 words
Martin Scorsese, who turns 81 today, is a master of the gangster movie: Goodfellas, Casino, Gangs of New York, The Departed, The Irishman, and now Killers of the Flower Moon. Killers is the true story of a series of murders that took place in the 1920s on the Osage Indian Reservation in Oklahoma.
When oil was discovered under their reservation, the Osage nation became, in effect, the first oil sheikdom. The Osage cashed in their oil revenues for fancy houses, cars, clothes, and bling. Alcoholism, obesity, and diabetes ran rampant. (more…)
1,746 words
“You don’t make up for your sins in the church. You do it in the streets. You do it at home. The rest is bullshit and you know it.” — opening line of Mean Streets
Hollywood collapsed in the 1960s. It proved, if nothing else, that when it comes to big money, even Jews can screw up. A combination of anti-trust actions and the rise of television meant that studio lots fell silent, and the golden age of Hollywood was over. (more…)
2,241 words
I am inaugurating a series on Classics of Right-Wing Cinema with Martin Scorsese’s 1976 masterpiece Taxi Driver. For the purposes of this series, what makes a film “Right-wing” is its subject matter, its message, or simply how it resonates with people on the Right, regardless of the filmmaker’s intent. Please feel free to nominate films for this series in the comments below.
* * *
It began with Dylann Roof. (more…)
69 words / 53:22
To listen in a player, click here. To download the mp3, right-click here and choose “save link as” or “save target as.”
Greg Johnson and John Morgan reconvene our weekly podcast to discuss Martin Scorsese’s latest film, The Irishman.
2,824 words
Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman is a return to well-trod ground – not just for the director, but for the actors concerned as well, not to mention Hollywood. It’s an organized crime story, the twist being that it has a political aspect to it as well. The cast is a veritable reunion of all the still-living actors who have played famous Italian-American mobsters in cinema or television over the past half-century: (more…)
2,254 words
Taxi Driver is the defining film for every bastard child of our times. How many men today can relate to Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro), a fucked up, lonely loser trying to make rent and find love in a disgusting, criminal, and uncaring concrete hive? The guy is nuts, but who could blame him? Why would anybody be normal in the world he inhabits? His job is dumb, his apartment small, and his surroundings hostile. (more…)
1,785 words
Note: Contains Spoilers
Audio Version: To listen in a player, click here. To download the mp3, right-click here and choose “save link as” or “save target as.”
One of the great things about Heath Ledger’s Joker in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight is that he does not have an origin story. (more…)
1,052 words
My favorite Martin Scorsese film is Gangs of New York (see my review here), but his follow-up film, The Aviator (2004), is a close second and rises in my estimation with each viewing. The Aviator is an epic depiction of the career of Howard Hughes, spanning the years 1927 to 1947, from the creation of his WWI flying epic Hell’s Angels to the successful test flight of the Hercules transport plane, dubbed by his enemies the “Spruce Goose.”
